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Putin Gives Nod for Armenia's Eurasian-Union Membership

Russia's Vladimir Putin has issued an ukaz on authorizing an agreement to accept Armenia into the Eurasian Union, a planned back-in-the-USSR bloc, but this may or may not make Armenia's membership actually happen.

Armenia's membership in the Russian- championed Eurasian Union, and its already active element, the Customs Union, has long smacked of a Nordic epic song, with multiple characters and events putting the spokes in Armenia's wheel. Customs-Union members Belarus and Kazakhstan are Armenia skeptics, and generally less keen about the Kremlin's everyone-with-a-Soviet-past-is-welcome policy.

Putin's September 1 order, though, includes unnamed, "minor" changes to the terms of Armenia's membership. It is unclear if this refers to concessions on the Armenian-championed breakaway territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Kazakhstan, with an eye to Turkic ally, Azerbaijan, which claims Karabakh as its own, strongly opposes Armenia's attempts to bring breakaway Karabakh into the Customs Union..

Recent statements by both Putin and Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, though moderated by courtesies, suggest a muffled disagreement between Moscow and Astana. Some believe that Russia's stance on Armenia and its campaign in Ukraine have contributed to the reported chill.

Nazarbayev said that he would quit the Eurasian Union if the terms of membership are changed or if the membership poses threat to Kazakhstan's independent statehood. Putin issued a reminder that Kazakhstan "had never had statehood" before Nazarbayev.